A Strong Start, But Would the Pound Have a Strong Finish?

It is hard to believe we are almost two-thirds of the way through this year. But here we are, with the final week of August to go through in terms of the currency markets. Where will the British pound stand at the end of this week?

An overview of the currency markets for August 24th – August 28th 2015

The pound began proceedings on 1.5672 against the US dollar. The first day was a good one as the pound finished it on 1.5745. Things got better still the day after, as the pound closed out Tuesday evening on 1.5783. So it had been a good start to the week, but where would it end? Unfortunately things went downhill from that point on. Over the course of the next three days the British pound lost ground against the US dollar. This meant that by Friday evening, the pound was settled on a very disappointing 1.5391. This was a significant drop from the opening rate earlier in the week.

Moving on, the pound started on 1.3892 against the euro, and slipped on day one to fall to 1.3694. Tuesday was better as the pound recouped some of its losses, rising to 1.3717 as a result. However, even though the remainder of the week had its ups and downs, the British pound didn’t manage to get back to where it had begun proceedings earlier in the week. Instead it stalled on 1.3659.

Could the British pound pull out a better performance against the Hong Kong dollar? Things looked good initially as the pound started on 12.147 and climbed steadily to 12.233 by Tuesday evening. But once again things didn’t go the way of the pound by the end of the week. Instead the currency dropped over the final three days, stalling on 11.928 on Friday evening.

Our fourth stop is with the New Zealand dollar. The opening rate was 2.3528 for the pound, and this leaped impressively to 2.4003 by the end of that first day. While the pound then rose to 2.4137 on Tuesday, it then experienced three poor days to close out the week. Fortunately the closing rate on Friday evening of 2.3872 was still significantly better than Monday’s opening rate had been.

As things turned out we saw something similar against the Australian dollar. The first two days went the way of the pound as it began trading on 2.1372 and rose to 2.1861 by Tuesday night. While the final three days saw the pound lose ground, it didn’t go below 2.1566 on Friday night. At least the pound did have some good results overall, even though in some cases there was a bad finish to the week as a whole here.

Notable events in the world of currency

A loss against the Canadian dollar

The pound began the week on 2.0543 here but then dropped back to 2.0426 by Friday night.

Another drop in form against the Swiss franc

Here too there would not be good news for the pound, even though there were a couple of good days throughout the week. Overall the pound dropped from 1.4955 to 1.4761.

Another fall against the Icelandic krona

In some quarters the fall in form of the British pound was a little more pronounced than in others. In this case the pound began trading on 203.801, yet by Friday the currency had dropped to 198.936.

As you can see the pound had some good performances this week and it certainly started strongly in some cases. However this would not be enough to take it through to the end of the week in good form. In many cases the latter days of the week were very poor indeed, giving other currencies the chance to shine.

Perhaps next week will produce some better results to take us into September, but until we reach that stage there is no way of telling whether the British pound has enough in the tank to achieve better rates.